Tolldja

According to those right-wingers at CNNMoney,

Economists: The stimulus didn't help

In latest quarterly survey by the National Association for Business Economics, the index that measures employment showed job growth for the first time in two years -- but a majority of respondents felt the fiscal stimulus had no impact.

NABE conducted the study by polling 68 of its members who work in economic roles at private-sector firms. About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act,

That sentiment is shared for the recently passed $17.7 billion jobs bill that calls for tax breaks for businesses that hire and additional infrastructure spending. More than two-thirds of those polled believe the measure won't affect payrolls,

Coincidence?

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009.

About 45 percent feel that their federal income taxes for 2009 are about right.

Choked to Death

From the NYP:
America's jobs growth engine is being choked to death.

A record 25 percent increase in the taxes against US small businesses -- from costs associated with new health care law, to an increased Medicare tax, increased capital gains taxes and higher state and city taxes -- is repealing any ability of these entrepreneurs to add jobs to their payroll.

"The impact of these higher taxes and reduced hiring will be a recovery cycle that will be much longer, be slower to take hold and be without much job growth,"

The 26 million small businesses in the US — like Eneslow Shoes, headed by CEO Robert Schwartz— are getting buried under an avalanche of new taxes, which include:

* An increase of 4.6% in federal taxes from 35% to 39.6% (expiration of Bush tax cuts)

* An increase in capital gains taxes from 15% to 20% (expiration of Bush tax cuts)

* A new tax of 3.85% on investment income, dividends, rents, royalties mandated in the new health care bill

* An increase in the Medicare payroll tax to 2.35% as mandated in the new health care bill

* In states like New Jersey and others, state and municipal taxes have been raised by the average of almost 2%

90% of GDP

Sure, THAT's fiscally sound.

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.

Hey Liberals, whining about the cost of Iraq! Suck it!

Crazy Pills

From NPR
As lawsuits against Toyota mount, attorneys are lining up for a leading role in the class-action lawsuits against the automaker.
Many plaintiffs claim that Toyota's problems in its recall of several models have driven down the resale value of Toyotas they own.

SIEGEL: And first, how many lawsuits, or how many class action lawsuits around the country are there against Toyota nowadays?

Ms. SEARCEY: Well, I think there are roughly about 80 seeking class action status, and most of those have to do with some accusing the company of making the value of owners' cars go down because of the recalls.

************************************

So now a days, you sell a product, and if anything happens that might reduce the value of that product after the sale, it is cause for you to sue to get your money for the difference.

How utterly absurd.

The floodgates that this opens up are beyond measure. What could this do to the stock market? 401k's ?

FoodStamps = Welfare

Best Idea I've heard in a while: There should be a seperate line for people using food stamps.

Why should the ones paying the bills have to wait in line behind the takers?

The worst idea ever? Replacing the paper stamps with a debit card.

The NY Times has an article about how the attitude has changed.

1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps.
1 in 4 children are on food stamps.

There's also an interactive map of the country HERE.

The greatest (cost) generation

According to the CBO:

In 2007, a little less than one-half of the federal government’s spending went toward programs and purposes other than Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and net interest on the public debt.

Queen Nancy

Having a tough time finding work? Don't worry. Queen Nancy feels your pain. Fortunately, she's able to quench that pain with Greygoose vodka, at $26.65 per drink.

Over the past two years, her cost for JUST IN-FLIGHT EXPENSES is $101,429. That's just booze and food while on a flight!!!

Here's one bill:


Her travel costs JUST FROM THE MILITARY are $2,100,744. TWO MILLION DOLLARS?!

We're so Screwed

Pelosi, Reid and Obama just refuse to see reality. Even as their policies extend this recession, they can't break doctrine.

From Queen Nancy:
“And three central pillars to that, to create jobs, are investment in education to produce innovation for the 21st Century, investments in health care to lower its cost, and it’s a competitiveness issue as well as a health issue, and that’s important to business, and then to have a new green energy policy to create new good jobs.”

Great. That won't do shit, except further hamstring the economy. Investing in education (if that meant more than just kissing the ass of the teachers' union) is great and all, but it doesn't reap benefits for a decade. The other two pillars are job killers.

Salt

How do the salt people make money? We buy a paper can(?) of salt about every ten years. It's 26oz and it cost 33 cents. 33 cents!? I don't mean to ruin a good thing or anything, but I'd pay much more than that. A dollar? Two dollars? Hell, probably more.

I agree with Paglia?

"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?"

"But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills."

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism.

Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Read the whole thing.

The Option ARM Tsunami

According to Business Week, the majority of the Option ARM resets hasn't even happened yet.
For those two people who don't already know, Option ARMs (Adjustible Rate Mortgage) is where you pay a low interest rate for the first number of years, then the interest rate jumps up, or resets, to a much higher rate.

What many analysts fear are the waves of "resets", when the teaser interest rates for these products expire. That means Freddie Flipper, who bought that $1 million McMansion in 2006 as an "investment property", will see his monthly payment double on a house that's now worth $600,000. And he will, like so many others, walk away after dropping the keys in an envelope and mailing them to his mortgage company (i.e., "jinglemail").

Just a Little Reminder

It Takes a Democrat

to be this stupid.

During this whole banking fiasco, have you heard anything about credit unions?
Niether has anybody else, because credit unions are doing pretty well.

The reason WHY credit unions are doing well is because they were exempt from that abomination, The Community Reinvestment Act, which is the root cause of the current credit market meltdown.

So of course the dumb-ass democrats want to expand the CRA to include credit unions.

If you have a credit union account (like I do) you might want to start writing your congressmen.

Obama is Brilliantly Destroying the Economy

Ya gotta hand it to him; he's hitting every aspect of the economy that could possibly help us out of this recession.

Raising taxes on business.
Forcing Unions into Business.
Raising the cost of energy.
Nationalizing Healthcare.
Raising Environmental Restrictions.

Look For that Union Label

Vice President Joe Biden was there, in Miami, to tell his keepers that they WILL get their "card check" law this year. President Obama video conferenced into the event to add his support.

Updated to Add:

Employee Free Choice Act Will Cost US Economy 600,000 Jobs in 2010

Organized Labor's effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) comes with a terrible cost to jobs and the economy, according to a detailed study released today by noted economist Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar.

Every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration will result in a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate the following year.


About the Author:
A highly regarded economist from the non-partisan firm LECG Consulting, with more than a decade of experience Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar received her BA in economics with honors, summa cum laude, from Indiana University (Bloomington), her master's and her PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. She has published articles in Antitrust, Global Competition Review, and Regulation Magazine and has numerous publications in academic journals, including Antitrust Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and Journal of Competition Law and Economics.